


Touch

by ami_ven



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: writerverse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy was the only person who touched him not just on purpose, but with absolutely no conscious thought behind it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "writerverse" prompt "feel your fingerprints on my skin" (1k+ words)

One day, Bruce realized that Darcy was the only person who touched him not just on purpose, but with absolutely no conscious thought behind it.

The rest of his team were careful with their touches— brief claps to the shoulder, or helping hands with clear warnings. And Tony, when he wasn’t randomly brandishing semi-pointy objects to ‘keep Bruce on his toes’, simply didn’t avoid touching him. Not that Bruce minded, because that was more or less what Tony did with everyone. Except Natasha.

But Darcy touched him like it never occurred to her that she shouldn’t. She didn’t even seem to think about it, because she never tried to give him warning like everyone else did, she just reached out and did it. She used his shoulder for leverage when she wanted to reach something on a high shelf, she batted his fingers away when he tried to reclaim his confiscated tablet during ‘designated scientist feeding times’, she nudged him out of the way with a hip or an elbow. And the first time she’d been faced with the Other Guy, Bruce recalled a little dimly, she’d frozen for less than ten seconds before she’d darted forward to grab a big green arm and lead him to the overturned bus that had Steve pinned.

Darcy seemed to touch him even _more_ after that, standing closer than was really necessary every time they talked, and somehow managing to sit next to him at every meeting, briefing and team meal. Bruce’s normally-reliable brain apparently decided to desert him when her fingers made contact with his skin, but he could never seem to bring himself to ask her to stop.

“I can honestly say I’ve never had a problem even remotely like this,” said Tony— the other man certainly came to _him_ for advice often enough, and Bruce thought it was high time for him to return the favor. “And I’m not even sure I understand what that problem is. Do you want her to touch you more, or less?”

“No,” said Bruce. “Yes, I— I don’t know.”

“Great!” said Tony, in a falsely-bright tone. “That certainly clears that up.”

“Tony…”

“Look, I think I get it. Darcy is young and beautiful, with no super-human abilities and, if I remember right, a perfectly normal middle-class childhood. And you’re less young, objectively less beautiful— sorry, buddy, but you and I both know it— and you turn big and green when you’re angry. So, I can see where you might want to keep a nice girl like Darcy away from the apparent danger of hand-holding and shoulder-touching. But I think there’s something you may have failed to consider, which is practically sacrilegious, for a good scientist like you. So I have a question for you, Bruce, a simple yet very important question… If Darcy Lewis has decided that you’re what she wants, what exactly can you do to stop her?”

“I—” Bruce began, then frowned.

“Exactly,” said Tony, pointing a screwdriver at him. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

Bruce knew exactly what he _should_ do. He should finally, gently, tell Darcy that there was no future with him, that she should find someone more suitable, more stable, less… dangerous. Maybe then she’d be able to have something resembling a normal life. Maybe she’d be less worried, without him to deal with. Maybe she’d be happier.

And maybe she wouldn’t.

Because, selfish as it was, Bruce wanted to be who Darcy wanted. He wanted to make her laugh and keep her from crying. He wanted to see every mood in between, fall asleep to her breathing and wake up to her smile. He wanted to see her every day for the rest of their lives, if she would let him. And it was starting to seem like she would.

Bruce looked up to find Tony grinning at him. “That’s what I thought,” said Tony. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Of course, the call to assemble came immediately after that, and Bruce didn’t have a chance to talk to Darcy until it was all over.

“You really need to tell Big Green to be careful out there,” Darcy said, eyes closed, holding out the bag of clean clothes she always seemed to have for him when he de-Hulked. “I mean, I _know_ he’s a virtually indestructible rage monster, but my blood pressure doesn’t seem to know that, so maybe you could just— Are you decent, yet?”

“What?” said Bruce. “Oh. Yes.”

He had fastened his pants and was pulling on a t-shirt when she turned around to help ease him into the button-down over-shirt. SHIELD teams invariably tried to give him sweatpants when he de-Hulked, but Darcy always brought him _real_ clothes, slacks and dress shirts, all of them washed unbelievably soft. He felt more human, afterwards, dressed like that, sliding on the eyeglasses she never forgot to include, and he suddenly realized he had never told her that.

Darcy _understood_ him, Bruce realized. She knew him, exactly as he was, the Other Guy included, and she was reaching out for him anyway.

“Seriously, Bruce,” she said, coming back into his field of vision. “Could you maybe tell him to stick to twenty-story buildings, or at least to look like he _meant_ to jump off of…”

Darcy paused, and touched his wrist, lightly.

“Hey, Bruce, you okay?”

He smiled and turned his hand over, catching hers. It fit perfectly. “Darcy, do you want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Bruce asked, all his hesitation gone. “I know a great place that just opened, in Harlem.”

“Yes… and no,” she said, her smile dazzling as she shifted to lace their fingers together. “Because that sounds like a really awesome _second_ date, but I’d really had my heart on something a bit more casual for a first date. Something like that ‘pizza the size of Manhattan’ that Tony was talking about earlier.”

“It’s a date,” said Bruce, and he held her hand all the way back to the Tower.

THE END


End file.
